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Outrage as FCC pushes for newsroom access

Critics want media study abandoned, skeptical of changes

Published: 02/20/2014 at 1:44 AM

(Fox News) Critics of a proposed Federal Communications Commission study that would send researchers into newsrooms across America say the new chairman’s vow to tweak the plan doesn’t go far enough — with one leading media group calling on the agency to scrap the study entirely.

“Where it really needs to go is onto the trash heap,” Mike Cavender, director of the Radio Television Digital News Association, said in a statement.

The FCC drew the ire of free-press advocates and lawmakers after proposing a “study of critical information needs,” which one dissenting commissioner said would let researchers “grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run.”